Finally, a film on the stock scam

TNNSep 18, 2005, 01.01AM IST

MUMBAI: Finally, Bollywood is doing its version of Wall Street with a film on stock market scams in Mumbai. "Gafla is a human story about ambition and a journey through an inevitable conflict between morality and economic logic,'' said 28-year-old Sameer Hanchate, who has begun shooting the film.

Although inspired by the Harshad Mehtas and the Ketan Parekhs, Gafla makes no direct references to real-life brokers who engineered the securities scam. "It is fiction. But when we talk about the Indian stock market, it is the scam of 1992 that comes to our mind.

My film is a rags-to-riches tale. It is about ordinary people under extraordinary pressure,'' Hanchate said. The filmmaker says he was inspired to make the film because of the enormity of the issue. "Our stock markets are the financial barometers of our country. It is a world that affects the rich and the poor. And these effects stem from greed and panic,'' he added.

Hanchate is producing the film under his banner, Metropolis Multimedia Company (MMC). It will be shot over a "start to finish" 40-day schedule at various locations in Mumbai including Dalal Street. "We will shoot it in areas around the stock exchange building, I don't know if we will get the permission to shoot inside Phiroze Jeejeebhoy Towers,'' said a unit member and associate of Hanchate.

Much has changed on the street since the scam broke. For one, the trading ring itself has ceased to exist with the advent of computerised online trading terminals. The drama surrounding events during the first seven months of 1992 was unprecedented—the sensex went from below 2,000 on January 1, 1992 to nearly 4,500 by April-end before crashing to around 2,600 by August 1992 after Mehta was arrested and the securities scam exposed.

The film stars Vinod Sherawat, Shruti Ulfat and Purva Parag in lead roles and Sameer Hanchate, Dayashankar Pandey, Aditya Lakhia and Vikram Gokhale.